Where is Settler Colonialism in an Abolition Democracy?

Session Submission Type: In-Person Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable takes up the question: What is the relationship between a project to dismantle settler colonialism and projects seeking "abolition-democracy" or "third reconstruction"? The notion of abolition-democracy was popularized for political theorizing by W.E.B. Du Bois in his analysis of the “splendid failure” of the Reconstruction Era. The focus of an abolition-democracy is often on the liberation of Black people and working classes across racial lines from the dual oppressions of capitalism and white supremacy. This idea of political and economic liberation centered on labor, often masculine labor, and it has evolved because Black feminist critique focused on hetero-patriarchy. But this panel would explore how the model or vision of abolition-democracy addresses the frame and history of nation-state, and thereby how it could and should stand in relation to settler colonialism, and also to the conceptions of sovereignty and borders that perpetuate migrant injustice. The panelists of this roundtable address these issues from various angles. Kevin Bruyneel’s work examines the need to bring contentions around labor, and around land, into conversation, by proposing an anti-racist left politics that takes seriously white settler masculinity, Indigenous people’s politics, and decolonization. Cristina Beltran’s work uses but also revises Joel Olson’s model of abolition-democracy by demonstrating how anti-immigrant politics, including violence, are a crucial feature of settler freedom in a white democracy that needs to be abolished. George Shulman explores how abolition-democracy must reconceive sovereignty and nationhood if it is not to re-inscribe settler colonialism in the name of perfecting American democracy. Deva Woodly examines how the Movement for Black Lives margin to center philosophy and “politics of care” can guide our notions of what constitutes justice for peoples subject to the intersecting legacies of colonialism and enslavement. Michael Lerma examines how “inclusion” in the Settler-Colonial project for Indigenous individuals often times implies the elimination of pre-Settler Colonial Indigenous Nations. This much has already been assumed and the extent to which Indigenous individuals adopt Settler-Colonial economic institutional placement is often measurable as a geographic and cultural shunning of Indigenous nation participation. In short, jobs and private property ownership cannot happen on Tribal lands so Indigenous individuals move to the city and are never seen or heard from at home again. Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark will address the tensions and possibilities for Native sovereignty and nationhood in relationship to this wider question.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Chair

• Kevin M. Bruyneel Babson College

Presenters

• Cristina Beltran New York University

• Michael Lerma Diné College

• George M. Shulman New York University

• Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark University of Victoria

• Deva Woodly New School for Social Research